5-Day Lake Manyara, Serengeti and Ngorongoro Luxury Safari

You'll leave Arusha after breakfast for the drive south west to Lake Manyara National Park, roughly ninety minutes on a tarmac road with views of Mount Meru falling away behind you. Once through the park gate the road drops into groundwater forest, where troops of blue monkeys and olive baboons move through the canopy and the air turns humid and green.

Your guide will spend the afternoon working the forest edge and the lake shore, where the park's famous tree-climbing lions are sometimes found draped over acacia branches, and where flamingos and pelicans gather in the shallows when water levels allow. You'll check into Lake Manyara's Secret in the late afternoon, with dinner and the night at the lodge.

After an early breakfast you'll drive north west across the Great Rift Valley floor and up onto the Ngorongoro Highlands, before descending onto the short grass plains of the Serengeti. The journey takes most of the day, roughly five to six hours with stops, and the landscape changes visibly as forest gives way to open savannah stretching to the horizon.

Your guide will use the last hour of light for a game drive on arrival, when the plains are at their most active and herds of wildebeest, zebra and gazelle spread out across the grass. You'll reach Serengeti Serena in the early evening, set on a ridge with wide views over the plains, for dinner and an overnight stay.

You'll have a full day of game drives in the central Serengeti, starting early while the light is soft and predators are often still active after the night's hunting. Your guide will follow the drainage lines and kopjes around Seronera, where lion prides den among the rocks and leopard are regularly seen resting in the branches of sausage trees.

You'll return to camp for lunch and a break through the heat of the day, before heading out again in the afternoon when animals move back to the open plains to graze. Depending on the season and rainfall, this stretch of the Serengeti also lies within reach of the wildebeest migration. Dinner and the night are again at Serengeti Serena.

You'll leave the Serengeti after breakfast, tracing the plains back east towards the Ngorongoro Highlands, a drive of around three hours that climbs steadily from grassland into cloud forest. Along the way you'll pass Oldupai Gorge, where a short stop gives context to the fossil record found in the area.

By early afternoon you'll reach the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater, over 2,200 metres above sea level, where the air is noticeably cooler and mist often gathers among the trees. Ngorongoro Sopa Lodge sits on the crater's outer slope with views down into the caldera, giving you a preview of the following day's descent before dinner and an overnight stay.

You'll leave the lodge early for the descent into the Ngorongoro Crater floor, a drop of around six hundred metres onto grassland, swamp and soda lake habitats packed into a single caldera roughly twenty kilometres across. Your guide will work the crater through the morning, when the resident lion prides are often visible on open ground and black rhino, a genuine highlight here, sometimes appear near the swamps alongside dense herds of buffalo and wildebeest.

You'll pause at a picnic site within the crater for lunch, with hippos often visible in the nearby pool, before climbing back up the crater wall in the early afternoon. From the rim you'll begin the drive back to Arusha, arriving in the late afternoon or early evening in time for onward flights or transfers.